Chapter 23

I met Jiang Sisi at a hotel.

Back then, after my attempt to report to the police failed, I decided to sneak into the hotel to gather evidence.

When the bodyguards discovered me, it was Jiang Sisi who dragged me into a cleaning closet to escape: “Are you crazy? If you dare send that evidence to the police, you’ll be dead by tonight!”

Her father had been framed into owing an enormous gambling debt, and in the end, his organs were harvested and his body dumped on the street. We shared the same plight and quickly became inseparable friends.

That night, my father demanded that I sell myself, but I refused.

I summoned all my courage and said, “The police told me that we are independent individuals. I have no obligation to repay your gambling debts!”

My father was furious. His hands clamped around my neck: “I gave birth to you and raised you, and now you’re talking about independence? Without me, could you have grown up? Even repaying me with your life would be justified!”

Just as I was about to lose consciousness, a figure rushed in from behind.

It was Jiang Sisi. She grabbed my math Olympiad trophy and smashed it down.

My father let out a scream and released me. His head was bleeding profusely, and the pain drove him into a frenzy. He grabbed the trophy and swung it violently at Sisi. In desperation, I grabbed a piece of electrical wire from the floor and wrapped it tightly around his neck.

I clenched my teeth and used every ounce of strength I had to pull back.

With each struggle, I could clearly hear my heart pounding fiercely.

When I was little, my father was incredibly strong.

He could lift me high above the reeds, letting me reach out and touch the sky.

The wire in my hands grew tighter and tighter, and tears blurred everything.

The past, the future, the present.

“Ah-”

After a short, sharp cry, everything fell silent. My father was finally gone. The golden math Olympiad trophy, now covered in blood, lay beside his lifeless body.

Both Jiang Sisi and I were gasping for air, desperately trying to catch our breath. Neither of us spoke for a long time.

“We can’t call the police,” Jiang Sisi said, clutching her bleeding head. “Otherwise, your life will be ruined forever. We need to deal with the scene first!”

“Deal with it? That’s easy for you to say! At this hour, taking a taxi will definitely make us memorable. We don’t even have the basic tools-how can we dispose of the body? The nearest bay is 130 kilometers away!”

My body trembled uncontrollably, my teeth clenched tightly, as I fought to hold back my tears.

“Besides, the liver temperature can be used to determine the time of death. Once they trace everything back, neither of us will escape!”

What should we do? Why is fate so cruel to us?

Everywhere feels like a prison, and we’ve long since run out of options.

I pulled out a bottle of pesticide from under the bed, something I had prepared as my last resort.

With a hoarse voice, I let out a bitter laugh: “You should leave. This is all my doing. If I die, everything will end.”

“No, no…”

But Sisi refused to leave. In the darkness, she held me tightly, afraid I might do something foolish.

She said that people who commit suicide cannot reincarnate, and in the next life, I would still suffer.

“There has to be a way, there has to be…”

At the edge of the night, she suddenly lifted her head and proposed a possibility:

“What if the body disappears? Wouldn’t that mean nothing could be traced?”